Oregon head coach Dan Lanning is answering a lot of questions about how his defense is going to contain generational Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith ahead of a Week 10 clash between the two teams in Columbus this Saturday.
Lanning believes Smith is a "special" player and acknowledged that his players are excited about the prospect of covering him. Taking it a step further, though, Lanning believes first-year play-caller Arthur Smith is doing a good job game-planning to enable JJ's dominance.
"(Jeremiah Smith is) a guy that you have to know where he's at at all times," Lanning said early in the week. "They've done a good job of moving him around and making it challenging. Arthur (Smith) and their offensive staff do a really good job of finding ways to get him the ball and be able to take advantage of it."
It's undeniable that Arthur Smith did a bang-up job with Jeremiah Smith when starting quarterback Julian Sayin was healthy. Before Sayin's likely season-ending throwing shoulder injury, Jeremiah Smith had a pair of 200-yard games against Illinois and Iowa.
More than half of JJ's games this season with Sayin as his quarterback resulted in at least 151 yards. He scored in all but one game this season, a 59-3 win over Kent State that was quickly uncompetitive.
Arthur Smith's brilliance will be truly defined by how he is able to feature JJ Smith in the post-Sayin portion of the 2026 season, though.
Arthur Smith's play-calling was suspect against USC with Luke Fahey
While it's easy to say Luke Fahey was the problem in the team's 30-18 loss to USC this past Saturday in Los Angeles, the truth of the matter is that the true freshman did as well as could be expected in his first game.
Ryan Day recognized the lack of performance from the talent around Fahey after the team's second loss of the season.
“At the end of the day, as a team, we weren’t able – to me – to play well enough to support a young freshman quarterback who was making his first start on the road," Day said to the media postgame.
The play wasn't good enough, what with an offensive line that was penalized heavily and an entire offense of players who were playing like they weren't prepared.
The coaching was also not up to snuff. Arthur Smith was able to get JJ Smith targets and touches, but it wasn't in the same explosive manner we've been used to all season. That is a problem in and of itself.
Lanning took the respectful route and isn't going to call out his opponent like that. Still, he likely knows that unless running back Bo Jackson has another big game, Lanning's defense may be able to take advantage of Arthur Smith's play-calling as the team is figuring out what works with Fahey.
If that happens, and OSU loses a second straight game to tank their CFP chances, there are going to be conversations about Arthur Smith's credentials, just as there were last offseason when he was initially hired.
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